Sport chiefs to ACC: name and shame cheats

Date: February 08 2013

Steve Larkin and Wayne Heming

Australian sports chiefs have demanded the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) name and shame the drug users identified in Thursday's explosive report before the reputations of innocent athletes are unfairly tarnished.

Led by rugby league super coach Wayne Bennett, they argue all athletes have been unfairly smeared as drug users by a report which uncovered widespread doping in Australian sport, with sportspeople angry at being under a veil of suspicion.

"The game is not at fault here - it's the agencies who started it all yesterday and went so public," Bennett said on Friday.

Bennett was joined by senior rugby league figure Phil Gould and AFL great Paul Roos in strongly criticising the lack of detail in the ACC report - saying athletes had been tarnished with the same brush.

"I don't believe sport has ever been as clean as it is now across all our codes," Bennett said.

"Will we always get it right? No, we won't. Will we always have a rogue somewhere? Yes, we will.

"The game doesn't tolerate it and most coaches and most clubs don't either.

"The tragedy of (Thursday) is, all of a sudden, we looked like we're all on drugs and we're all using illicit substances and it's being encouraged by everybody.

"The allegations didn't come as a shock. What came as a shock was the way we handled it.

"I just think we handled it very very badly."

The ACC on Thursday said it had uncovered links between organised crime and performance-enhancing drugs being used by elite athletes, but cited legal reasons in refusing to name sporting codes, clubs or individuals involved.

This also didn't sit comfortably with Bennett, who took aim at anti-doping agencies for their failure to detect any problems earlier.

"Part of my beef with this is that if we've got the drug problem we have, what's the drug agency been doing?" he asked.

"We pay them a lot of money to come into our sport and we've made a lot of compromises for them to come into our sport.

"Now they're telling us we've got a problem. I can't detect - I've got no means to do that. We employ them to do that."

The ACC provided specifics to the relevant sports and police, but some sports officials said all athletes have had their integrity unfairly questioned.

Gould, the general manager of NRL club Penrith, said "at the moment, everyone is guilty".

Roos, a retired AFL premiership coach, said the ACC could have provided greater detail without hindering future investigations, while former prime minister Kevin Rudd said all sportspeople were "walking around with a total cloud over their head".

Veteran Brisbane NRL administrator Andrew Gee said he was upset at seeing innocent athletes walking around with their heads bowed.

"It's disgraceful for someone to just come out like that and tar everyone the same," Gee said.

"... What I see are elite athletes who train and push their bodies to the limit, who are reluctant to walk down the main street because they're under this veil of suspicion.

"I can tell you they are very embarrassed and angry about it.

"They (the ACC) should have continued their investigation under the radar and not released any details until they were ready to blow the lid on all the cheats."

The ACC refused interview requests on Friday.

In other developments, AFL club Fremantle said it was convinced none of its players was given banned drugs from a club sponsor which imported unregistered substances.

Fremantle was sponsored in 2008 by Nutrition Systems, whose parent company Export Corporation (Australia) Pty Ltd was last year found guilty of importing unregistered substances and fined $3.1 million in the Federal Court.

Fremantle ended its sponsorship with Nutrition Systems in 2009 "purely on commercial terms", the club's chief executive Steve Rosich said on Friday.

In NRL circles, Gold Coast said a jam jar of liquid, possibly urine, found hidden in plumbing at their home ground wasn't being investigated by police.

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